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Book Review: Extasia by Claire Legrand

Extasia by Claire Legrand

Extasia by Claire Legrand

Katherine Tegen Books, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062696632

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

( Bookshop.org |  Amazon.com )

 

Extasia is a fiercely feminist dark novel of a post-apocalyptic community drenched in patriarchy and cult-like violent misogyny straight from The Crucible and Year of the Witching. The dogma is that women were responsible for the destruction of the world and thus four young girls are honored with the “sacred duty” of becoming saints, scapegoats who once a month face brutal mob violence from the community in order to expiate their sins. A serial killer has been murdering men, and the upcoming sainthood of Amity Barrow is expected to bless the community and end the killing. When the murders continue, Amity and her sister saints realize they must find a way to either solve the murders or escape. Just as things seem desperate, she is transported with her sister saints to a secret world, Avazel, and invited to join a coven and learn to wield the magical, dark power of extasia to end the killings and realize her own strength… but there’s more going on under the surface than she knows.

 

Extasia is visceral, violent, and disturbing in its intensity, but Amity is not completely isolated. She develops imperfect but strong relationships with girls and women from her community and the coven that survive even significant disagreements. While it’s somewhat heavy-handed, Legrand has outdone herself in creating a dark, powerful, horror story made even more terrible by the foundation of lies, grisly violence, and hate on which human survival after the apocalypse has been built..Recommended for ages 16+

 

Contains: violence to and killing of animals, attempted rape, torture, gore, murder, body horror, violence, gaslighting, religious trauma.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on March 7, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: The Devil and His Advocates by Erik Butler

cover art for The Devil and His Advocates by Erik Butler

The Devil and His Advocates by Erik Butler

Reaktion Books, 2021

ISBN-13: 9781789143737

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition  ( Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com )

 

In Erik Butler’s The Devil and His Advocates, the author argues that Satan is not God’s enemy in the Bible, but that he has been misinterpreted. In fact, he has been doing God’s bidding rather than acting as his own entity all this time. Butler uses the Old and New Testament, especially the trial of Job, to analyze the figure of Satan in literature, music, theology, and visual art from antiquity to the present. Butler asserts that Satan has been tasked by God to test human beings, whose piety leaves room for doubt. Butler argues that while Satan can be manipulative, he facilitates what mortals are inclined to do anyway, and he’s right.

 

In addition to biblical sources, Butler uses works of literature from Dante, Chaucer, Christopher Marlowe, Robert Burton, Jules Amédée Barbey d’Audervilly, James Joyce, Isidore Ducasse, Oskar Panizza, William Butler Yeats, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gian Pietro Lucini, Gottfried Benn, C. S. Lewis and more to unveil the nature and depiction of Satan, or the satan (which is an eye-opening discussion itself in the first chapter) to discuss why and how Satan’s role, position, and even personality have been, essentially, misinterpreted or reinterpreted. Butler includes a chapter on music as well.

 

Butler includes references, an index, and illustrations in The Devil and His Advocates. While this isn’t a work of horror, The Devil and His Advocates has the potential to be a valuable research tool for anyone who wants to focus on Satan in their fiction. It could also be useful for numerous classes, such as literature, drama, religious studies, fiction writing, and more. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on October 25, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: Teeth in the Mist by Dawn Kurtagich

Teeth in the Mist by Dawn Kurtagich

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-0316478472

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

Teeth in the Mist tells the stories of three young women, each from a different time period, navigating the terrors of Mill House, a large house located on Devil’s Peak in an isolated part of Wales. Hermione Smith, writing in 1583, is the young wife of John Smith, the original owner of Mill House, who made a Faustian deal with the Devil.  Roan Eddington, living in 1851, is the recently orphaned ward of Dr. Maudley, the eccentric owner of Mill House at that time. Zoey Root, in the present day, is a runaway who inherited occult powers from her father, who went insane after a visit to Mill House, and has gone there looking for answers.

Kurtagich can really write. The gloomy atmosphere and the evil of Mill House and the mountain are described so effectively that the book is an immersive, visual experience. It has a clever design as well: at times, words are placed deliberately on the page in specific locations with different type and sizes to make a particular impact; there are pages that appear to be pieces of old documents and letters; the story is told not just through traditional narrative, but through diary entries, Facebook posts, transcribed recordings and camera footage, flashbacks, and multiple points of view. It’s a lot to balance. While Hermione’s story is not as strong (she’s just not that dynamic a character), Roan’s is dramatic, suspenseful, and terrifying, and Zoey’s has slowly building suspense that ratchets up as it progresses until an abrupt ending. Unfortunately, the ending is abrupt enough that I was left wondering how and why things wrapped up (or were left loose) the way they were. In sum, Teeth in the Mist is a gripping, compelling, violent, creatively designed, and atmospheric Gothic novel, but with a disappointing ending. I picked up this book with only the knowledge that it was on the preliminary ballot for this year’s Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel. Although it didn’t make the final ballot, it definitely deserved the additional recognition. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, but for the right kids, it will be a guilty pleasure. Recommended.

Contains: Witchcraft, the occult, body horror, violence, gore, incest, cannibalism, murder, torture, sexual situations

 

Posted on February 27, 2020 by , Reply
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